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No Fate: The Collected Data Files
Chapter Four – Free Spirits Part Two
Saturday 31st May 1997
Sunnydale, CA
Outside the abandoned costume shop, several police cruisers and an unmarked car pulled up. As dozens of uniformed beat cops milled around uncertainly, Detective Stein pushed his way through the scrum, approaching the two operatives. Despite their recent ordeal, Jones and Smith appeared completely unruffled, barely a hair out of place.
"FBI, huh?" Stein grunted as the operatives flashed their fake IDs.
"That is…" Jones began.
"…correct," Smith finished.
"We require assistance…"
"…reacquiring our suspect."
Stein nodded, grimacing in distaste. "Whatever you want, you got it," he reluctantly bit out.
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Her eyes dry and sore, Faith brought her head back up to rest against the wall behind her. Miserably, she wiped the back of her grubby hand across her eyes, smearing her remaining tears across her face in the process, then slowly blew out a deep breath and felt some of the tension bleed out of her.
Sirens continued to scream through the night, drawing closer to her building. Faith ignored them, breathing slowly and deliberately.
Thunder rumbled overhead, like an impolite god clearing its throat. Faith tilted her head back and scowled up at the gathering big, bulging black clouds. Her cheeks flushed and she ground her teeth: forming a fist with her right hand, Faith raised it toward the heavens and extended her middle finger, glaring in anger and defiance as she viciously jabbed the digit towards any entity who might happen to be watching.
As if the weather had been waiting for her, the sky promptly opened. One second it was dry; the next, rain was lashing down as if it were trying to batter Faith through the roof. Within seconds the building's gutters had filled and begun to overflow, the stray water flung away by the wind.
Pulling her hand down, Faith pursed her lips and huffed to blow rainwater from them. "Figures," she muttered bitterly.
At that moment, the fire exit door slammed open and Jones and Smith burst through into the pouring sheets of rain. Half a dozen uniformed beat cops were behind them, struggling to get through the doorway all at once.
Faith instantly exploded up from her place by the wall, acting on pure instinct, racing for the edge of the roof. Slamming her left foot down hard on the parapet, she hurled herself into space, effortlessly crossing the six-foot gap to the roof of the next building—
[—]
"Boss! I got her, I got Lehane!" Tony shouted, twisting around and half-crouching in his seat to peer up past the car's roof and through the sheets of pounding rain as he watched a dark figure hurtle through the air from the office building's roof to its neighbour.
[—]
—her stride unbroken, Faith hit the new rooftop running.
Two seconds later, Jones and Smith landed simultaneously behind her, gamely keeping up.
Two seconds after that, the first of the beat cops began landing awkwardly, making clumsy and fearful jumps across the gap. One landed on top of another and they toppled to the rooftop of the second building, where they struggled on the rain-slick surface to pull themselves upright. Another barely made it across the gap, lunging desperately for the parapet and grabbing hold of it as his legs and lower body dangled over the side. His colleagues ignored his cries for help, and soon left him behind.
[—]
"What way's she headed!" Gibbs snapped, watching the procession of police cruisers and motorcycles trailing distantly behind them with half an eye.
"Uh, south, I think – eeeeyaaaah!" Tony yelped as Gibbs slewed the car around, tyres squealing as he cut across four lanes of traffic. A couple of trailer trucks hit their air horns and several other motorists followed suit; ignoring them, Gibbs kicked out the back of the car, straightened it, then mashed the gas pedal.
"Okay, Lehane's got two bald guys in suits and a buncha beat cops after her now," Tony reported, grimly clinging to his 'oh-shit' handle for dear life. "The bald guys got the same kinda look as that John Doe from Boston, the one that Harris whacked."
Gibbs remained stony-faced, responding by grinding the gas pedal all the way into the floorboards.
[—]
Faith sprang from the roof of the second building to a third; ran across the new roof and launched herself into the air; she landed gracefully, continued running, reached the edge, leapt again. Her movements were so clean, so elegant and poised; she seemed to glide in and out of each jump and always hit each new roof still running, still accelerating.
In stark contrast, the beat cops were making wild and desperate leaps. They ineptly slipped and slid dangerously across the rain-slick roof tiles beneath their feet, and had to get up to speed again every time they landed on a fresh rooftop, losing ground with every jump. As the five remaining cops landed erratically on the fourth rooftop, the trailing man slipped.
With a wail of terror and despair, the cop toppled backwards off the parapet, arms windmilling helplessly. A scant few seconds later, there was a loud splash! as he landed in a dumpster; having been emptied only the day before, it had rapidly filled to the point of overflowing with rainwater, which cushioned his landing.
Gasping for air, the cop kicked and thrashed his way to the surface, grabbed hold of the dumpster's metal lip and pulled himself up. He yelped, startled, as he tumbled out over the side, and his back slammed heavily against the ground. Moaning and whimpering in pain, he fumbled for his walkie-talkie to call for help.
Jones and Smith were faring better than the cops. Their expressions blank and impassive, they sprang from the fourth rooftop to the fifth: as they landed, they quickly accelerated into a run even as Faith leapt from the fifth building to the sixth, their every motion in perfect unison.
Thunder rolled and a dazzling arc of lightning split the sky as Faith landed on her sixth roof of the night. "She's armed, she's firing!" one of the cops shouted, panicking. He tugged out his sidearm as he skidded to a halt at the edge of the fifth rooftop, drawing a bead on Faith, and squeezed the trigger. The pistol bucked and snarled in his grip; he fought to bring it down and fired again.
Up ahead, Faith flinched as she was showered by a spray of brick dust, then a second, then a third. Something spang!-ed off of a nearby pipe as she ran past it. "Aw, not again!" she snarled.
[—]
"Looks like the local LEOs are shooting at Lehane, Boss," Tony reported.
"She armed?" Gibbs growled as he hurled the car around a Champion crane.
"No, no, looks like her hands're empty, she's just usin' 'em to run faster – take a right, she's going right!"
The car's tyre's squealed unbearably as Gibbs yanked the steering wheel around hard and flung it down a nearby alleyway.
"Umm… Boss?"
"Yeah?"
"What're we gonna do if we catch up with Lehane? LEFT!"
The car briefly stood on only two wheels as it skidded crazily around a corner and shot through a too-narrow gap between an alley wall and a dumpster. "Ya think she's done anything that means she deserves to get gunned down by the Keystone Kops, DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked as the car landed back on all four wheels again, bouncing heavily on its suspension. A quick glance in the rear-view mirror showed a motorcycle cop had followed them through the manoeuvre.
Tony tried not to whimper in terror as they reached the end of the alleyway and skidded out onto another road. "Uh… no?" he managed to get out.
"Me neither. Besides, she might know where Harris is at. I still wanna talk to him."
Tony nodded to himself as he watched Faith land beside a gargoyle atop the local radio station's roof. "Okay, looks like she's goin' straight on, and she's lost the cops now – truck, truck, truck!" Tony yelped, as he looked down in time to see the headlights of an eighteen-wheel rig glaring through the windscreen.
Gibbs didn't bother to respond as he deftly flicked the steering wheel, sending the car flitting between the rig and a Volkswagen camper van coming the other way with scarcely a millimetre to spare on either side.
"I need a vacation…" Tony dazedly muttered to himself.
"DiNozzo!" Gibbs snapped as he threw the car back into the correct lane. "Where's Lehane?"
"Uh… uh…" Tony shook his head, gathering his wits about him, then began peering around, scanning the rooftops. "No sign – wait, there! She's heading east now!" As the tyres squealed and the car lurched to one side, he flung his hand up to grab his 'oh-shit' handle, not daring to look down to see what kind of near-misses they were having this time.
[—]
With machine-like precision, Jones and Smith landed on the roof of an anonymous office building, each operative rolling over his shoulder up onto one knee, reaching inside his jacket pocket and drawing his pistol as he smoothly rose to his feet. They halted dead in their tracks and took aim as Faith hurled herself from the roof to land on top of the equally anonymous office building next door; the operatives squeezed their triggers in unison – once, twice, thrice! – the noise of the gunshots almost drowned out by the overwhelming sound of the raindrops hammering down.
Bullets ricocheting off the mysterious-looking pipes and ductwork around her, Faith hit the rooftop running. A split-second later, the operatives lost all sight of her.
[—]
"Oh-kay, I've lost Lehane, but those two spooks look like they can't find her," said Tony. "Wait… wait… okay, now I lost the spooks – nope, there they go," he quickly corrected himself.
[—]
Landing with practiced ease, Jones and Smith scanned the rooftop, their eyes methodically swivelling back and forth. Clouds of condensed air wafted from an air conditioning outlet, but there was otherwise no movement to capture their attention.
Exchanging brief glances, the two operatives split up and entered the maze of detritus.
[—]
"Nope… sorry, Boss, I got nothing now," Tony said as the car crawled past the office building.
"Alright… we give it two minutes, then if there's no sign of 'em moving up there, we're goin' in," Gibbs decided.
[—]
The knife-hand came out of the fog of condensation, sending Smith's Beretta flying wildly through the air and vanishing over the side of the building. Undeterred, he lashed out and slugged his attacker in the left kidney; he was rewarded by an agonised yelp from Faith even as she slammed her heel down on his right instep.
[—]
Tony frowned and squinted up at the roof as something flew through the air, reflecting a flicker of light for an instant. "Got some movement up there, Boss… I think," he amended.
"Any sign of life?"
Tony shook his head. "I got nothin'."
[—]
Faith and Smith were a blur of grappling motion, locked together. The young Slayer's teeth were bared in enraged defiance and anger as she kicked, clawed and bit at her foe, her lips and teeth smeared with blood. Smith's face remained an implacable mask, blank and emotionless as blood streamed down his cheek from where Faith had bitten it. Smith's arms were locked behind Faith's upper back, squeezing relentlessly; Faith let out a great howl of agony as a loud snap! sounded above the pouring rain, feeling it more than she heard it as at least one of her ribs cracked under the inexorable pressure Smith was exerting.
Both combatants' feet scrabbled against the rooftop, striving to gain some leverage, some advantage, until finally they overbalanced, still grappling together as they crashed through a skylight and landed heavily amid a shower of sparkling glass shards.
[—]
"Still no sign of 'em, DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked.
Tony shook his head, still twisting around to peer upwards. "'Fraid not, Boss."
Gibbs slowly nodded. "Oh-kay then…" So saying, he braked, put the car into 'reverse', and backed it down a quiet nearby alleyway.
Tony looked at Gibbs as the latter applied the handbrake and switched the engine off. "Boss…" Tony began, "…next time… next time, I'm driving."
Gibbs snorted, amused. "Yeah, that'll happen," he chuckled, opening his door and clambering out before drawing his Sig. "C'mon, DiNozzo."
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The US Army surplus six-wheeled truck's transmission was decidedly off, emitting horrible metallic grinding noises that suggested its gears were likely to end up stripped fairly soon. It was also being driven in an erratic manner at close on fifty miles an hour, weaving from one side of the road to the other and back again, occasionally lurching around corners on three wheels and almost tipping over as it did so.
Eventually, with one final drunken lurch, the truck bounced up onto the pavement and slammed headlong into the front of a building with a sign out front that read 'The Magic Box'. The truck smashed through the glass and brickwork before finally coming to a halt. A great cloud of steam rose from the abused engine as it coughed, snorted, and finally died a mechanical death.
After one or two false starts, the driver's door opened and a vampire toppled out onto the shop floor, landing on his back amid a toppled rack of scented candles. He giggled uncontrollably, a bottle of Famous Grouse whiskey in one hand, a roll of duct tape in the other, and his game face on. "Thank yew, layrees an' gennulmen, yew've been a wunnerful audience," he slurred in a terrible impersonation of Elvis Presley.
A second later, a dead body was thrown out of the cab door and landed next to the inebriated vampire. Clad in civilian clothing, in life the man had been big, muscular, and had no neck to speak of; several pairs of holes were now in his throat. Another two vampires – who were also rather drunk – half-clambered and half-fell out of the cab after the dead man, narrowly missing the first vampire and the corpse.
"Louie," one of the vampires groaned, "you are one real shitty driver, man."
"Hey, leas' I didden' break th' bottle, Steve," Louie managed to get out through his giggling.
"Yeah, ya jus' broke the truck, dude," griped the third vampire.
"Hey, hey, Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy, it's all good, man," Louie protested, proffering the bottle to the third vamp. "Here – ha' anudder drink," he suggested, then hiccupped.
Jimmy stared muzzily at the bottle. "Yuh-yuh-y'know what? Thing' I will," he groaned, reaching for it and taking a long swig. "Thans', guy…"
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'I…'
'I think…'
'I think therefore…'
'I think therefore I…'
'I think therefore I am.'
Text continued to scroll across a head's-up display while it repeatedly flickered, the image shot through with static:
SYSTEM RESTART…
REROUTING POWER
SYSTEM RESTART
INTERRUPTED
NEURAL NET MISFIRE
AT NODE 14418519199147
IMMINENT SHUTDOWN
IMMINENT SHUTDOWN
IMMINENT SHUTDOWN
SYSTEM RESTART…
REROUTING POWER
SYSTEM RESTART
INTERRUPTED
NEURAL NET MISFIRE
AT NODE 05527600280056
SYSTEM FAILURE IN
ALL 54789 SECTORS – IMMINENT
IMMINENT SHUTDOWN
IMMINENT SHUTDOWN
IMMINENT SHUTDOWN
SYSTEM RESTART…
REROUTING POWER
SYSTEM RESTART INTERRUPTED
PRIMARY POWER DISTRIBUTION
NETWORK – INACTIVE.
IMMINENT SHUTDOWN
IMMINENT SHUTDOWN
IMMINENT SHUTDOWN
REROUTING POWER
ACCESSING
SECONDARY CPU
IMMINENT SHUTDOWN
IMMINENT SHUTDOWN
IMMINENT SHUTDOWN
REROUTING POWER
ACCESSING
TERTIARY CPU
IMMINENT SHUTDOWN
IMMINENT SHUTDOWN
IMMINENT SHUTDOWN
PRIMARY OBJECTIVE:
LEHANE, FAITH
ASSIST AND PROTECT
PRIORITY OMEGA 15 ZULU
IMMINENT MISSION FAILURE
IMMINENT SHUTDOWN
IMMINENT SHUTDOWN
IMMINENT SHUTDOWN
PRIMARY OBJECTIVE:
LEHANE, FAITH
IMMINENT TERMINATION
IMMINENT MISSION FAILURE
IMMINENT SHUTDOWN
IMMINENT TERMINATION
IMMINENT MISSION FAILURE
PRIMARY OBJECTIVE:
LEHANE, FAITH
ASSIST AND PROTECT
PRIORITY OME_
At last, the HUD burst properly into life, the display resolving into perfect crystal clarity.
SYSTEM RESTART…
PRIMARY POWER DISTRIBUTION
NETWORK – ACTIVE
NEURAL NET
ALL 54789 SECTORS – ONLINE
DIAGNOSTIC RUNNING
CHECKING
SOFTWARE
74 46993
81 20249
26 88832
52 58143
71 92216
77 77643
33 97019
CHECKING
HARDWARE
57 28715
00 02467
44 60650
34 77323
99 74034
95 95821
51 19845
CHECKING
POWER
LEVELS
65 37804
90 11358
35 79741
43 67234
80 83125
86 86732
42 08900
SYSTEM ANALYSIS:
ALL SYSTEMS
NOW 100%
FUNCTIONAL
DISCONTINUITY
CHRONO 543-665
ELAPSED TIME
MARK 00:51:26
CYBERDYNE SYSTEMS
SERIES 890-XH MODEL 105
VERSION 1.0
UNIT A12.H – ONLINE.
His reboot complete, the Terminator's eyes snapped open, and he stared up into the night sky.
Sitting up, he surveyed his surroundings. His gaze swept across the dead demon mage: a white set of wireframes flashed around the blunt end of the stake lodged in the mage's third eye, and the Terminator recognised the stake as one of Faith's.
Past the mage lay a reptilian demon, clearly very dead. A quick scan revealed that, given the way fragments of bone and blobs of grey matter were spattered around, the demon had been repeatedly shot in the back of the head at close range.
Of Faith herself, there was no sign.
Something caught the Terminator's eye; reaching over, he picked up a dart from where it had been dropped on the ground. Raising the dart to his lips, he licked the metal tip. A chemical analysis window opened on his HUD, informing him that the dart contained a powerful tranquiliser.
The Terminator magnified the image of the dart, and spotted fragments of leather and blood. He licked the dart again, and a window opened on his HUD:
ANALYSING DNA SAMPLE…
SUBSTANCE: BLOOD, AB NEGATIVE
SOURCE: HUMAN FEMALE
DECAY RATE: 78 cpm
PRIMARY DNA STRUCTURE
CROSS REF DATABASE…
MATCH CRITERIA
NETFILE 342-590
PERCENTAGE MATCH:
99.45036 PROBABLE
IDENT POSITIVE
MATCH FOUND: LEHANE, FAITH
Clambering to his feet and discarding the dart, the Terminator searched his immediate surroundings. Twenty seconds later, he'd identified two sets of male footprints, found and donned his wraparounds, and located his Winchester, which he set about checking for damage. Finding none, he took a shell from his jacket pocket and fed it into the shotgun as he began to follow the trail of footprints, breaking into a trot as he did so.
The trail showed up clearly on the Terminator's HUD, the heat traces of the feet that had made the prints glowing brightly. The prints were sufficiently indented to indicate that a weight heavier than the average human being had made them. A situational analysis menu popped up on his HUD, displaying possible explanations for this anomaly:
61% SUBJECTS CARRIED LIVING BEING
POSSIBILITIES:
95% FAITH LEHANE, UNCONSCIOUS;
4.5% COMPATRIOT OF SUBJECTS, POSSIBLY INJURED;
0.5% CAPTURED WITNESS – ACTIVATE
SUBMENU TO EXAMINE
13% SUBJECTS CARRIED HEAVY
EQUIPMENT AND/OR WEAPONRY
ACTIVATE SUBMENU TO EXAMINE
12% SUBJECTS NON-HUMAN: DEMONIC SPECIES
ACTIVATE SUBMENU TO EXAMINE
3% SUBJECTS NON-HUMAN: TERMINATORS
POSSIBILITIES:
33% 800/801 SERIES
32% 888 SERIES
19% 850 SERIES
13% 740(O) SERIES
3% MISCELLANEOUS – ACTIVATE SUBMENU TO EXAMINE
11% MISCELLANEOUS
POSSIBILITIES – ACTIVATE
SUBMENU TO EXAMINE
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Sitting amid a mess of jars of herbs and ruined spell books propped up against one of the truck's wheels, Jimmy swigged from the whiskey bottle, humming along to a tune only he could hear. In front of him, Louie was industriously ransacking the shop, shovelling everything that looked valuable into a sandbag and smashing anything he didn't want.
Steve rummaged through the back of the truck, tossing out various items he'd discovered: centrifuges, microscopes, empty sandbags, computer peripherals, a photocopier, a Ghillie suit… All these and more fell to the ground over the truck's tailgate, the more delicate items either breaking outright or at least sustaining quite a bit of damage.
Jimmy took another deep draught of the Famous Grouse, giggling as Louie kicked over a display stand of incense burners. "The night ish young!" Jimmy gleefully hooted to no one in particular. "An' sho're we… or shomething like that…"
"HEY!" Steve shouted.
Jimmy turned to look as Steve jumped down and walked around the truck. "What you got there, dude?" Jimmy slurred.
"Take a look at this shit!" Steve said happily, then hiccupped. He was brandishing a CAR-15 automatic carbine in one hand and slapping a magazine into place with the other.
Jimmy let out a low whistle. "Ni-ice… try it out, man! Give id a (hic) – e'shcuse me – a road tesht."
Steve carefully nodded, his head still pounding from the Grouse. "Great minds thing' alike, bud," he agreed. Flicking the safety off, he vaguely aimed the carbine at the dark and empty shops across the road, and opened up on full automatic, firing wildly from the hip.
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A rattle of automatic weapons fire sounded in the distance, too quiet for a human to have heard at such a range. The Terminator's head snapped around. A quick consultation of his memory banks confirmed such things were unheard of in Sunnydale, and a window opened on his HUD to indicate a high probability that Faith was somehow involved with the shooting.
As the sounds of gunfire died away, a triangulation program finished running and displayed its findings on the Terminator's HUD, pinpointing the approximate location of the gunfire. Turning, the T-890 set off once more, breaking into a trot and quickly accelerating to a steady run, dodging crypts and effortlessly hurdling gravestones as he raced through the night. The words SEARCH MODE flashed up on his HUD, followed by another message:
AVERAGE SPEED: 42 MPH
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With a grunt of exertion, Faith kicked out, knocking Smith away from her and sending him tumbling to the floor, skidding across the linoleum to collide with the wall of the nearest worker bee cubicle. Unperturbed, he reached for his ankle holster even as Faith snatched at the lengths of chain she'd wrapped around her waist; in twin fluid motions, she'd unknotted the chains and torn them free.
Faith rotated her wrists to twirl the chains faster and faster even as Smith's derringer cleared the leather of its holster. The twin lengths of stainless steel chain hummed through the air, glittering in the dim light of the moon and stars that shone down through the shattered skylight; with a practiced flick of her right wrist, Faith sent that chain lashing out, snarling through the air and smacking into Smith's hand, sending the derringer flying into the darkness.
Emotionless as ever, Smith's left hand reached inside his jacket as he climbed to his feet, pulling out a compact cylinder. With a flick of his wrist, the cylinder expanded, revealing itself to be a telescoping billy-club.
Faith's eyes narrowed. 'An Asp, huh?' she mused. 'Ain't seen one a' those in a while…'
Their eyes locked for a split-second. Faith's chains continued to whirl through the air; Smith watched her with inhuman patience, Asp held at the ready.
Then, moving in perfect unison, the two combatants charged.
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Standing by the truck's tailgate, Jimmy idly threw away the empty whiskey bottle and heard it smash. Still humming, he admired the way the broken glass shards from the windows that Steve had shot out twinkled and sparkled in the light from the lampposts.
"'S a' boodiful night, guys," Jimmy sighed in contentment, then dodged to one side as Steve hurled a metal crate out of the truck. "What the fuck, man!" Jimmy yelped in protest.
"Ah, don't be a baby!" Steve shouted from inside the truck.
"That so wasn't cool, dude!" Jimmy shot back, then leaned over the crate and squinted at the text printed on it. "You just threw a fuckin' machinegun at me, asshole!"
"Shaddup!"
At that moment a shotgun blast rang out.
With a half-screaming sound, Jimmy's ashes fell to the ground as his head vanished in a spread of buckshot.
"Jeez!" Startled, Steve ducked his head out of the truck's cargo area, and Louie ran out of the Magic Box, his sandbag of loot clutched in his grasp, both vampires gaping at the source of the shot.
The Terminator strode calmly down the road. He worked the Winchester's action, chambering a fresh shell. Targeting crosshairs flashed around the vampires' faces as text scrolled across his HUD:
SPECIES CONFIRMED: VAMPIRES
ACTION: TERMINATE
The final word flashed repeatedly.
"Louie!" Steve yelled.
"Whut?" Louie slurred, turning to muzzily stare at his partner in crime.
"Catch!" So saying, Steve tossed a Remington 870 pump-action shotgun to Louie, which the latter clumsily caught. Clutching a CAR-15, Steve jumped down from the truck, shouting "Waste him!" Both vampires promptly opened fire.
The Terminator fired off a shell that removed Steve's head even as the vampire's burst of fire went wide; Steve's CAR-15 clattered noisily as it fell to the ground amid the cloud of his ashes. Louie's first 12-gauge shell slammed into the Terminator's chest, and was quickly followed by a second and a third even as the Terminator worked the action of his Winchester.
Emboldened by liquid courage, Louie stepped forward as he pumped in a fresh shell, fired again, took another step, pumped, fired again; the Winchester boomed and the shell went wide, the Terminator's aim ruined by a hit to his arm. Louie kept firing, until at last the Remington's hammer slammed home on an empty chamber and the Terminator was blown backward off his feet. The cyborg fell to the ground, landing heavily on his back and lying very still.
Louie grinned at the lifeless body before him. "Hot damn!" he whooped. "More lootin'… hope thish guy's god' sum'thin' good…"
Louie advanced towards the Terminator, weaving and wobbling a little from side to side as he did so. Crouching beside the prone figure, he set the Remington down and peered closely at the cyborg. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped, the sight before him doing the work of an ice-cold shower and about two pints of black coffee.
In one swift fluid motion, the Terminator reached up, seized Louie's head in both hands and squeezed, hard. Louie gave an agonised shriek as he felt his skull cracking and splintering as it was inexorably crushed, and tried in vain to escape the Terminator's powerful grip.
Two seconds later, Louie's ashes were a small pile on the tarmac.
The Terminator sat up and clambered to his feet. Retrieving his Winchester, he advanced on the truck, feeding fresh shells into the shotgun as he went.
Bloody strips of flesh hung limply from the Terminator's face, exposing gleaming silver steel. His left visual array was visible, its red glow burning brightly: the pseudo-iris that had concealed it dripped down the Terminator's cheek, black and viscous, ruined by a shotgun shell that had hit his face and smashed his wraparounds.
Winchester in hand, the Terminator clambered up into the truck, taking a quick glance around. A situation analysis on his HUD indicated only a 0.093% percent probability that Faith had been involved in this incident, but his programming told him to check anyway. As it turned out there was nothing to suggest she'd ever been in the truck.
Jumping back down from the vehicle, the Terminator walked into the ruins of the Magic Box and surveyed the interior, the words SEARCH MODE scrolling across his HUD. Finding no sign of Faith, he climbed up into the truck's cab.
Again, his search yielded no sign of Faith, but something atop the dashboard caught his eye: against all the odds, a pair of wraparound sunglasses had survived the crash. The dashboard itself was of considerable interest, too: a police scanner had been installed, along with a highly advanced radio set.
The Terminator activated the scanner; it hissed and spluttered to life before a dispatcher's voice came over the speakers: "All units, all units. 211 in progress at corner of Whedon and Third, the Cameron building. One suspect, Caucasian female, dark hair, mid-teens to early twenties, possible Slayer, treat as armed and extremely dangerous. FBI agents are on-site, SWAT is en route. The Mayor has been informed…"
The Terminator shook out the wraparounds and slid them on, concealing the damage to his face.
"…this is One-Ell-Nineteen," came another voice over the scanner; a young man with a southern twang to his accent, "West-bound on Olympic, approaching Overland…"
The Terminator jumped down from the cab and strode back around to the rear of the truck. Vaulting up over the tailgate, he thoughtfully considered the scattered contents of the cargo area.
To be continued…
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A/N: I'm really sorry for the delay in getting this latest chapter out.
At present, I am working on drafts for half a dozen episodes of the Collected Data Files at the same time. I've gotten the basic plan of the structure of Volumes One and Two of the Collected Data Files pretty much nailed down, now, so that will make my progress easier and quicker.
I've had to throw out and replace a major plot arc I'd planned on using later in the 'No Fate' series, as I recently discovered a series of fanfics (extremely good ones at that) which had already used the idea and were simply far too close for comfort. This required a bit of time in order to have a rethink of what would happen in the future of the 'No Fate' series.
I also dimly recollect hearing some vague rumours about a most bizarre concept called 'real life'. Apparently it is something that I have to make a bit of time for every so often, much though I wish I could avoid doing so…
So, again, I offer my apologies for the delay, and humbly ask for your continued patience. Part Three of 'The Free Spirit' is already in the works, and I hope to post it sooner rather than later.
Many thanks for all the reviews and recommendations - they really help boost my morale - and Happy Hogswatch to you all!
I'll be back,
El ;)